Posts tagged ‘refinery’

Imports of Iraqi Basrah Light crude into the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port so far in April have risen by more than 4.4 million barrels from the same period in March, according to data from Platts Analytics and US Customs.

In the first half of April, 4.937 million barrels of Basrah Light were imported into Morgan City, Louisiana, the delivery point for LOOP. This represents more than double the amount of the grade imported into LOOP for all of March, which had a total import level of 2.027 million barrels. In the first half of March, only 525,000 barrels were imported in Morgan City.

The US West Coast market is strange. Disconnected from the rest of the US, it’s a bit of a red-headed stepchild, especially for gasoline.

While the Gulf Coast can send refined products up to the Midwest or Atlantic Coast via pipeline, creating natural, obvious arbitrages, no infrastructure extends westward past the Rocky Mountains. This isolation (and strict environmental mandates in California) makes the West Coast one of the most volatile gasoline markets in the world.

Record US crude oil inventory levels in 2015 reminds us of a pig crossing paths with a python. The pig is consumed by the snake, bulging in the reptile’s stomach as it goes through the digestive process, and is a handy parable for oil markets.

In 2015 US refineries took unprecedented bites out of the US crude oil glut that was largely the result of higher domestic production levels. But while these python-like refineries have increasingly been built to take a more variable diet, the pigs are getting larger and possibly outgrowing the refineries’ ability to digest the upcoming portions.

As in other parts of the US, falling crude oil prices are proving a boon to refiners. Janet McGurty looks at how prices are impacting refiners and oil producers in the Rockies region of the US in this week’s Oilgram News column, Petrodollars.

Australia’s aged refining sector has shrunk by more than half over recent years, but at least one small local player appears to want to buck the trend with ambitions to fill a niche market on the country’s northeast coast.

According to local press reports, privately owned Australian minnow Casper Energy, headed by Brisbane-based businessman Duncan Mackenzie, has teamed up with Nevada outfit Eagle Ford Oil and Gas Corp. on plans to build a small oil refinery in the central Queensland port city of Gladstone. The project is designed to meet demand for fuel, particularly low sulfur diesel, in the burgeoning industrial and agricultural sectors in and around Gladstone.

In this week’s Oilgram News column, Regulation & Environment, Brian Scheid describes how different segments of the US oil industry are grappling with which policies they feel most in need of revisions given the temptation of foreign markets for domestic crude.